Three... two...one... GO!

So, here I am the day of the departure finally arrived! The struggles we had with the visas for this trip took from me at least ten years of my life. It has been a real tour de force.

These are the times required for the visas process for our journey:

1. Benin visa: 10 minutes with the e-visa.
2. Togo visa: with shipping and handling, three days
3. Ghana visa: shipping to Denmark, handling time, and shipping back: one week.
4. Nigeria visa: Shipping to Sweden handling time and shipping back, three weeks worth of constant calls, email reminders, and a considerable amount of money to set up an alternative method for shipping the passports back.
What do we suggest? Africa is big, beautiful and exciting, avoid Nigeria!

This has been our crazy countdown:

Two weeks before the departure: we had to send back our passports to the Nigerian Embassy in Stockholm, because of a series of misunderstandings.

Eleven days to departure: they received the passports.

Seven days to the departure: they asked us to send more documentation, which was promptly sent by email.

Four days to the departure: they advised us to provide for a courier pickup, which we provided the very same day. The courier pick up was scheduled for the following day, and we would have received it the day after, so two days to our departure.
We informed the Embassy about the scheduled pickup, and they acknowledged it.

Three days to departure: The courier informed us that the Embassy declared not having anything to be picked up.
Panicking we tried to call the Embassy... No answer
We sent four emails, and only the day after they replied that now the courier could come.

Two days before departure: Reschedule the pickup. Finally, the courier got our passports, and we started to feel more relaxed.

The passports reached us safely yesterday, one day before departure.
I have never in my life been more stressed than the last two weeks. I was as tense as a violin chord, but now, it's time to celebrate:

The Wandering Writer is back on the road! Whohoo!

Stay tuned, because I am going to post on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/pjmann2016/) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/paperpenandinkwell) a sort of photo journal, and every week you will have them summarized right here in this blog!
Have a great weekend!